The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-11-28

polyS laugh at The Railroad or Love tll
their sides ache. They have had sorrow
enough in their time. When they go
to t a matinee they want fun not TRACE
All of which, little observation has con-
vincedAme, is true New York is a matinee
city, and matinee audience could be told
from an evening gathering if you were to
meet them in the Fiji Islands. Your NATL
nee people, in the first place, are almost all
of them feminine. In the second place they
are all in tailors' gowns.
One goes to the theatre in the evening TO
see dress. In the afternoon there is none to
see. You can't tell the Fifth avenue bellies
in the boxes, SO far as gowns go, from the
East side shop girls who look down from the
gallery Evening dress was never so vari-
Gus, daylight toilets were never so uniform
before. Slender figure, clean cut face,
bright eyes, trim fitted dark gown, chlc
braided jacket bangs less hutlily volumili-
Gus than last year, dark gloves, character
ize every woman under so in the house; and
how curiously out of place, as if they had
strayed in from last year, those two girls IN
the balcony look who have added to the
wel-bred, faultlessly monotonous dress de-
corum of the theatre garden OF chrysan-
themums each, growing in the lapels OF
their tailor coats. A matinee is curiously
restrained, cautiously dignifed as to its
DuJ WOuleu WuO nave Detu ShopPlhS
carry their bundles, school girls drop in
with books on their arm and the pencil
marks not washed off their cuffs, and people
who want to indulge more or less openly in
caramels
To the actor the matinee is a black ter
ror. He is painfully conscious of the absence
of the critics, the literati; there are 30
heavy swells, masculine or feminine, no IA
miliar faces, nothing brilliant to catch the
eye in the house.
The actress doesn't hold the afternoon per-
Torrance in quite such horror, because she
is shrewd enough to know that the cohorts
of boarding school misses from out of town
who have dreamed all the week of the foot
lights, who adore Modjeska's grace and
Rose Coghlan's coquetish sauciness and
Annie Pixley's diamonds and Mrs. Potter's
gowns; to whom the glitter of paste is the
shine of old mine jewels, and whose hearts
swels with admiration or burst with envy
at the froufrou of silks, the tracery of laces
or the art of make up that seems natures
own stamp of beauty TO them; the actresses
feel that no audience can be gathered that
enjoys so much delight marred by so little
criticism.
Her manager once said to me, with a
that-settles-it air which told volumes, that
Mrs. Langtry was the best matinee attrac-
ton in the country. Very likely he told the
UIuUI, lOT UUb LILY kDONS uOW W veal llCl
gowns. Mrs. Potter is going to be a mat
inee success, and it is there, if anywhere,
that her pretty face and fetching gowns
will tell. 1t is gowns that tell the story.
"What beautiful woman Agnes Booth is;
| could look at her foreverm exclaimed
woman in front of me the other afternoon.
Mrs. Booth is very clever actress, of won
derful intelligence, but it is not her proud,
almost coldly naughty face that has made
Il.I- &c haY. .iol,
gowns. If Manager Palmer had staged
"Jim the Penman" less extravagantly he
would have lost money by his economy, and
it would have been his matinee audience
that suffered most. People who don't
go to Days of an afternoon to see Mrs.
Gilbert's love scene, and to be reminded by
it that that mature charmer began to play
before they were grown, and consequently
the last hope Of such things for them
has not fled, go to see Ada Rehan's gorge
Gus marigold satin ball dress with its
yellow velvet bodice and peerless, rich, long
train.
Sophie Knight is wearing about 5000 in
one gown in ''The Baron" and Georgia Cay
van has sported money enough on her back in
an afternoon to fit out moderately economi-
cal society woman for season. Actresses are
artists enough to know that they don't look
any better for spending $40 yard for gold
embroidered satin, but they are wise enough
to know that it pays, especially for matinees,
Mary Anderson played pauline" in the
Lady of Lyons, the first time she ever ap-
peared in New York in white gown that
cost exactly 81 %, and she never looked
sweeter after she got rich enough to pay
S125 instead; but the cheap silk wouldn't do
for matinees.
Women who can dress magnificently are
the best matinee attractions. Among men
there has never been a successor to Montague.
The alleged feminine worship of hand
some actors is mostly stuff and nonsense,
but what little truth there is in it applies to
the schoolgirl contingent of the matinees.
Montague was horribly bored by women,
but they worshiped him, and Wallack's
was never the same after he died. There
isn't reigning favorite now. Dixey got
deal of alteration last season, but women
have tired of "Adonis.n Handsome Bob
Hilliard held a good many hearts in his
hand till the feminine world somewhat
slowly tumbled to the fact that both he and
Dixey are married and devoted to their
wives; since when the owners of the offered
hearts have reclaimed their property. Man
tell was a god in the old days when he
played Fedora" but that idolatry has
waned. Bellew has made sad havoc, but
Bellew is married and MARRIAGES. a sad de-
stroyer of romance. Richard Mansfield
and OSrnunQ learie draw WOMEN 10 UldJl-
nees and Joseph Haworth has had some
worshipers at his shrine Campanini is
schoolg rlsis hero, if she doesn't happen to
meet him off the stage and get olsen
chanted.
1t takes certain kind of play as well as a
certain sort of actor to draw at a matinee
Romeo and Juliet, and The Lady of Lyons
take with the feminine audiences where
The Tanning of the Shrew won't go down.
There's that delightful absurdity all about
"Parthenia" and "Ingomar" The critics
all fall foul CT it as an antiquated, hIstrionic
chestnut, but it will catch a matinee any
afternoon, because it appeals to the femin-
inc heart to see a slender woman make big
burly Goth get his hair cut and do as she
pleases generally. The London papers
cracked ponderous jokes at Mary Anderson's
expense when she chose that play for her
English debut, but it took with English
women, it would be safe to wager
The spectacular doesn't take at a matinee.
Women don't admire their own sex, as a
rule, in tights, and would like Loie Fuller,
for instance, much better in gown. The
country contingent, with some men in it,
which makes up the rest of an afternoon
audience, goes to the standard attraction,
and the spectacle has to look on the evening
for its big houses
A matinee audience is less sophisticated
than an evening house and it always enjoys
itself. The student of human nature en-
lows the audience if there is nothing div TT
ing on the stage.
ELIZA PUTNAM HEAToN